Among conventional methods for assisting a beginner during a parking operation, who is not familiar with parallel parking and/or perpendicular parking operations, for example, a method described in JP11-334470A is known. A parking assist system disclosed in the JP11-334470A includes a CCD camera provided at a back of a vehicle for capturing an image behind the vehicle and a monitor display for displaying the image captured by the CCD camera. On the monitor display, a traveling locus of the vehicle, predicted based on a steering angle, and the image behind the vehicle are superimposedly displayed. The predicted traveling locus of the vehicle includes a line indicating a moving direction of the vehicle and distance indicator lines indicating distances from the vehicle. The distance indicator lines include the distance indicator line positioned near the vehicle and another distance indicator line positioned farther away from the vehicle than the distance indicator line displayed near the vehicle.
JP7-174576A discloses a method for displaying information of an intersection and an apparatus for providing road information, which allows an easy identification of types of roads at an intersection by providing an appropriate display setting for a driver having color weakness or being color blind, or for a vehicle passenger affected by a reflection of a display screen to better suit individual visual capability. More specifically, the method for displaying information and the display apparatus allow the driver and the vehicle passenger to identify different types of roads by means of arrows having different patterns and widths. In addition, the method for displaying information and the display apparatus allow the driver and the vehicle passenger to set a display style based on a visual capability of a user by means of “a style for displaying the types of roads and direction”, utilizing elements of, for example, shapes, colors and light-dark intensity.
However, in the predicted traveling locus of the vehicle of JP11-334470A, the lines closer to the vehicle and the lines farther away from the vehicle, specifically the distance indicator line positioned closer to the vehicle and the distance indicator line positioned farther away from the vehicle than the distance indicator line positioned closer to the vehicle, are displayed in approximately the same widths. Consequently, a person having normal eyesight and a person having color weakness may find it difficult to identify the distance indicator lines. In this case, parking assist may not work best.
The method and the apparatus disclosed in JP7-174576A allow the person having color weakness to set the display setting based on the visual capability of a user, however, they do not facilitate a better sense of distance relative to the vehicle. In addition, according to the method and the apparatus disclosed in JP7-174576A, the display setting needs to be changed to suit the use by the person having normal eyesight and by a person having color weakness individually, which may lead to misidentification of lines or misoperation in case of an inappropriate display setting.
A need thus exists for a display apparatus displaying an image of surroundings of a vehicle, which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.